Monday, May 5, 2014

April 21 - 27

Hey everyone!!! let me just get right to one of the best weeks ever!!!

Monday- Transfer day. Didn't effect my companionship thank heavens so it was a typical p-day for us. We did everything that we needed to in the morning so for the rest of the day was chill. We didn't need to go to the store for food so we went straight to the library to email. This is our favorite part of the entire day. along our way to the library we were stopped a few times to talk with people. we both thought it was funny that, that happened, because we were so anxious to email but the Lord said wait a little longer cause you need to talk with these people first. we were able to set up a return appointment with one of them! Later in the evening we had dinner and FHE with the Buck family and our neighbor Virginia. Virginia ended up not showing which we were super bummed about, however we did end the night on a great note. We had a service activity for one of our potentials Jock. We were helping him unload some things into his new home from a storage unit. the previous day we went into priesthood and asked for some help and we had about 15 guys show up! Needless to say we will be used a lot more in priesthood haha Jock and his family were so happy to see us all there willing to help. they were able to help unload and put up beds and move the fridge. They were so grateful for us and our help. Jock has MS and he was starting to hurt so they said we came at the right moment. They guys there were able to fellowship the family which was so neat. We invited them to church and they accepted, they also want to learn more! WE FOUND A FAMILY OF FOUR!!!! Ahh!! we are on cloud nine right now! eeekkkk! the Lord sure blessed us with this one. They family consists of Jock (dad) Olivia (mom) and two sons 9 and 14ish. We are so excited to teach them.

Tuesday- This morning we had district meeting which was interesting. we have a new district which I am not too excited about but I will give it a try! My new district leader is elder Francis who didn't make the best first impression to us. He called us the night before and wanted to talk a little about the area. We were happy to talk and help out any way that we could. he talked to us and said; Sisters this area concerns me. the numbers in this area aren't improving. I was so ticked when he said this. I said I am sorry but numbers don't show everything that we do as missionaries. I wasn't about to let this elder tear my companionship down and make us feel discouraged. He agreed with my statement but kept proceeding to tear us down. After that phone call I was nervous on how the rest of the transfer will go with him being our DL and our ward mate. As a companionship we decided to pray for the strength to endure this time with him and to humble ourselves and to have the Christ like love towards him. that is all we can do. We had a good rest of the day! We were able to go over to a members home to talk with her about a few things that was going on. We both were super nervous about this conversation but it went way better than we planned. We are all on the same page and ready to work with each other. We invited her to come to a church tour that we are doing today for a potential we met street contacting. His name is Cisco and he is practicing Buddhism but loves learning more about different religions. We were excited to show him around but he didn't show up. Oh well at least we tried. After we went to the Remingtons for dinner and then to our appointment with the Guerrero family. That lesson went so great! We talked about the Restoration and the story of Joseph Smith praying to see what church to join and him receiving an answer. We invited Miguel who is the investigator to pray daily and to pray with his wife. We ended with a Mormon message about prayer. The spirit was so strong during that lesson. I love being a missionary! on our way home we stopped and talked with a lady named Maria. Sister Dunford accidently scared her cause we were coming up behind her on our bikes and she couldn't hear us cause she was listening to her music. We apologized and started talking with her about her family. I then asked if we could come over sometime and share a message about Christ and she said we could Thursday night. We were so excited to hear this. We have a potential family!! That was the cherry on top of the good day we had.

Wednesday- We had a normal morning. After lunch we went and visited with Sister T again. We just love this lady so much! we talked with her for awhile and shared a message of faith and hope with her. After we went and tried to see a few more people but no one was home. We were able to visit with Darren and Narah for a few minutes which was good. their lives are still super crazy. Its hard keeping up with it all! After we had dinner and then went to mutual. For young women's it was a mother and daughter night. It made us miss our moms so much!! :( We sat around camp fires and played a question game and made smores. Later in the evening we were asked if we would introduce ourselves to a non-member who came with her friend. Her name is Katharine and she is 14. She is super cute and out going. She is interested in the church and says she is going to start seminary next year! We told her what we do as missionaries and she sounded intrigued with it. We hope to have a FHE with her and the family soon!

Thursday- Normal study morning. After lunch we went out to visit a few people but they weren't home. We then decided to do 3 doors down but we weren't having any luck. We came back to our apartment complex and tried to visit a few people here as well but still no luck. We went home and grabbed some thank you cards and went and sat by the pool and wrote thank you cards to members of our ward. As we were doing that a security guy came up and started talking with us. He is active in his church but he had questions he wanted to ask us. He had some great questions and he loved how we responded to them. He told us our parents would be proud we planted a seed! After we went to Ivans home to have a lesson. Sister Dunford and him really hit it off which I was grateful for! It was fun seeing her get excited in that lesson. Ivan doesn't know much doctrinal things about the church but he does remember the things he has felt. We will help him retain the information and live by it. it was so fun helping people become better. after Ivan we went to dinner at the Siewerts home. that is always an interesting time. She has 3 young boys so you never know what to expect haha once that was over we went and stopped by Christines home to set up an appointment with her. Sister Buck has been working with her and she has had a few lessons but since we have been here she has been busy and put it all on hold. we decided to finally go and introduce ourselves which was a great idea on our part. She was so excited to see sister missionaries. She has only met with elders so she was interested for sure. we were able to set up a time to meet with her next week!

Friday- Normal study morning. After studies we started weekly planning which took many hours to complete. we both felt really sick so after we slept and then got up and got ready for dinner. We have no idea what was wrong with us but we both felt like we got ran over by a truck. Our bodies just ached. We went to dinner at the Dades home. We love them so much!! He is the young mens president and she is in the stake young womens presidency. He is African American and she is Samoan so we were fed very well haha we felt right at home with them. They have 2 daughters and a son they also had their niece over who isn't a member. she was investigating but backed away from it all. She has been coming back to yw's activities and has talked with us a little bit. She is starting to warm up to us! We don't want to be the pushy missionaries so we are just going to wait it out. Everyone has their time. After dinner we were able to stop by Jock and Olivia's to invite them to church. They said they would try to make it. They are settling in their new home so we hope to have a lesson with them soon.

Saturday- this morning we were able to be apart of Mormon Helping Hands. our stake does it every year, where we go tracting for food. The food we collect goes to local food banks. It was so fun to see us all in the yellow vests. Sister Dunford and I liked that we weren't the only ones getting weird looks on the street. We were all able to bring back so much food. It was amazing to see it all. After that we went home and studied and then went over to John's a potential investigator. We met him after we met with Ivan. We talked with him on his driveway and he invited us to come back on Saturday when he had more time to talk. He was outside and he saw us and invited us into his home with his wife. We were able to talk a lot about the Plan of Salvation. They are Catholic but he only goes on holidays and he loves learning about different religions. They both loved learning about this plan and agreed with everything we talked about. We are planning to go over next week as well because they invited us back! We were so excited!! After we headed to dinner with Lucy. She is an older single Spanish sister. She took us out to dinner with her roommate Julie who isn't a member. She is from Lima, Peru. We went to a little Mexican place which was very good! Lucy asked us about the baptism that we were planning to attend. Our zone sends out texts letting us know when we have baptisms so all the other missionaries can invite their investigators to attend. We invited Miguel our investigator but his wife Alicia said he was working so we told her we weren't going any more cause we didn't have an investigator coming. Right then she turned to Julie and asked her if she would like to go to a baptism. She agreed and Lucy turned to us and said we are going to a baptism! our jaws dropped haha we were so excited. the baptism service is all in Spanish so she was excited about that. We were on our way there and we got a phone call from Alicia saying her and Miguel were coming. Sister Dunford and I didn't know what to do with ourselves. We were on cloud nine once again. The service went so well. It was a 16 year old boy who was getting baptized. Miguel though it was neat to see a youth decide for himself to make such a life change. We talked to both Julie and Miguel after about their feelings and they both said they feel good, calm and peaceful. We told them about the Holy Ghost and they liked that. We asked Julie if she wanted to learn more and she said yes set a time up with Lucy. we just got another investigator!! WAHOO!!! we introduced her to the Spanish sister and we said she can take the lessons in Spanish since its her first language but she said no she wants it from us in English. We were so happy! we lover her so much already. when we got home we were so happy that we got 6 new investigators this week. We had to share our exciting news so we called our STL's Sister Ott and Shaw. They were thrilled for us and were happy that we shared our miracles with them. We were happier than little girls on Christmas morning haha

Sunday- We had our normal church meetings. In ward council we were so excited to share our big news. We love sharing our miracles with them because it then gets them excited about the work. we were expecting Jock and Olivia to come to sacrament but they didn't show (later we found it was cause they had to go to LA for her dad. he was in the hospital) we also was expecting Ivan but he didn't show either. We were bummed but we didn't let it get us too down. We then taught gospel principles which went well. We were happy to be done with that! We had dinner at Dawns home which is always a blast! She asked us if we could give her the recent convert lessons cause she isn't too fond of the elders in our ward. We were so happy to say yes we can do that!! We love that family so much!!

It was amazing to see so many miracles this week! Heavenly Father really blesses us and has His hand in our lives. I love you all so much! and I am so thankful all the prayers on my behalf. Hope you all have a fantastic week!! LOVE YOU ALL!!!